The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

Adrenalin was babbling through the lips of the Slammers officer. His right hand was working in front of him where the Guardsmen couldn't see it, clenching and unclenching, because if it didn't move, it was going to find its home on the grip of his submachine-gun . . . .

Anne was waiting around the comer. She looked at the faces of the three men and closed her eyes.

"Anne, we can't—" Desoix began. He was sure there had to be something he could say that would keep her from the suicide she'd threatened, at the hands of the mob or more abruptly here with a rope or the gun he knew she kept in her bedroom.

"Sure we can," said Tyl Koopman. His voice had no emotion, and his eyes had an eerie, thousand-meter stare.

"You've got a calliope aimed at both side stairs, sure, they won't buck that, one burst and that's over. And me and the boys, sure, we'll take the main stairs, those lock gates, they're like vaults,noproblem."

"Then it's all right?" Anne said in amazement.Her beautiful face was lighting as if she were watching a theophany. "You can still save us, Charles?"

She touched her fingertips to his chest, assuring herself of her lover's continuing humanity.

"I—" said Charles Desoix. He looked at the Slammers officer, then back into the eyes of Anne McGill.

They'd have to do something about Major Borodin—literally put the old man under restraint. Maybe Delcorio still had a few servants around who could handle that.

"I—" Desoix repeated.

Then he squared his shoulders and said, "Certainly, darling, Tyl and I can handle it without the help ofthosefools."

It amazed the UDB officer to realize how easily he had decided to ruin his life. The saving grace was the fact that there wouldn't be many hours of life remaining to him after this decision.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Tyl watched the antenna of his laser communicator quest on the porch outside the Consistory Room, making a keening sound as it searched for its satellite. The link was still thirty seconds short of completion when his commo helmet said, "Four-six to Six, over."

Tyl jumped, ringing the muzzle of his submachine-gun against the rail as he spun.

"Go ahead, Four-six," he said to Sergeant Major Scratchard when he realized that the call was on the unit push, not the laser link he'd been setting up. He was a hair late in his response, but nobody else knew the unexpected call had scared him like that.

"Sir," said Scratchard, "the Palace troops, they're all marching out one a' the side doors right now. Over."